Brief Profile of Dr. Dinesh Katre
Head & Programme Coordinator of Human-Centred Design and Computing Group, C-DAC, Pune

Qualifications
Ph.D. in Human Computer Interaction / Interface (HCI)
Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences (BITS), Pilani

Dissertation Title:
"Visualization of Interface Metaphor for Software: An Engineering Approach"
(The Ph.D. Research was completely sponsored and hosted by C-DAC)

Master of Designs (M.Des.) in Visual Communication
Industrial Design Centre, Indian Institute of Technology (I.I.T.) Powai, Bombay

Bachelor of Fine Arts (B. F. A.)
Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Arts, Bombay

Book on Human Work Interaction Design



The book is published by Springer Verlag, Germany in the IFIP Series on Advances in Information and Communications Technology (AICT). It is listed on Amazon and Springer Websites.

Professional Activities
Dinesh Katre has Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) from Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani. His is perhaps the first HCI Ph.D. in India. He also has M.Des. in Visual Communication from Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. He has 16 years of sound experience of working with an Information Technology organization, where he has been spearheading both R&D and business projects. Presently, he heads the Human-Centred Design and Computing Group at C-DAC. Earlier, he established and managed the National Multimedia Resource Centre of C-DAC, Pune for over a decade. He has conceptualized and implemented many R&D projects that deal with Digital Preservation of Indian Heritage, Cultural Informatics, e-Learning, Multimedia Authoring & Content Creation, and Computer Game Development. He is the principle designer of many software, content and training products. He manages multidisciplinary teams and coordinates between diverse technology development groups.

Research Interests
He is interested in the design of usability for software products through the study of user's cognitive and behavioral psychology. His research covers interface metaphor design, interaction design, cognitive linguistics, instructional models, visual comprehension, user experience design, remote usability testing, etc. He has special interest and experience in the cognitive study of children and illiterate users.

Activities at National and International Level
* Member of International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group 13.6 on Human Work Interaction Design (HWID)

* Co-chair for Full Research Papers Track, India-Human-Computer Interaction / IDID, March 2010, IDC, IIT, Mumbai, India

* Member of Editorial Committee for i-Manager's Journal of Education Technology

* Member of Programme Committee for International Workshop on Internationalisation of Products and Systems 2010 , England

* Member of Programme Committee for INTERACT 2009, Sweden

* Co-chair for IFIP HWID 2009 Conference on Usability in Social, Cultural and Organizational Context , Pune, India

* Co-chair for Indo-US Workshop on International Trends in Digital Preservation 2009, Pune, India

* Member of Advisory Committee & Chief Mentor for Conference on Advances in Usability Engineering (CAUE 2008), Pune, India

In past, he was a member of international program committee for India-HCI 2004 conference. He also organized the National Conference on Multimedia Technology for Culture in year 2000 at Pune, India.

National Level Specialized Task Force / Committees
* Member of Taskforce / Sub-committee on Using ICT for Adult Education and Literacy setup by Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India

* Member of Taskforce / Sub-committee on Research and Development in Digital Preservation as part of National Digital Preservation Programme of Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, Government of India

Research Publications / Workshops / Conferences
He has traveled across India and abroad to deliver lectures, seminars and workshops dealing with HCI. Some of the reputed institutes in India where he is invited include Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai; National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, SNDT University, Mumbai; Film and Television Institute of India, Pune; Jadavpur University, Kolkata; Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of ICT, Gandhinagar; Vishwakarma Institute of Information Technology (VIIT), Pune and several others. Internationally, he is invited to share his expertise at University of Abertay, Dundee, UK; University of California, USA; and Copenhagen Business School, Denmark.

Apart from these, his talks have been organized by professional bodies like Usability Matters Organization (UMO), Hyderabad, Usability Professionals Association (UPA), Computer Society of India, Project Management Institute (PMI), CHI-SI and many multinational IT companies. He was invited to share his experience of Remote Usability at the seminar on User Centred Design (UCD) organized by Indo-European Systems Usability Partnership (IESUP), along with professors from Uppsala University, Sweden at Mumbai in 2003.<

He has published around 32 research papers/articles in the national/international conferences and journals. His technical article for 'GUI of the Future' contest won the PC Quest award in 2003.

During 2005-2008, he has delivered over 60 talks on wide ranging topics related to usability at academic, research and professional organizations.

Academic Contributions
He has been actively contributing to academics as well. He was a member of advisory council of Creative-i College, Pune.He has been the external guide and examiner for UG and PG design students from IIT Mumbai and IIT Guwahati. He designed the syllabus of Diploma in Advanced Computer Arts (DACA) program with the tool-independent approach in 1995. This educational program is offered through a network of ACTS centres across the country for over a decade now. It has produced over 2000 multimedia professionals so far. Many of these professionals are now contributing to the newly emerging domain of user-experience-design.

Proudest Moment
In 2004, he was invited at Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi, as part of the delegation, to present His Highness, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, President of India, the CD ROMs on 'Life and Work of Srinivasa Ramanujan'. The CDs were developed under his leadership. This is the proudest moment in his professional career so far.

Other Activities
In past, he has created / directed many video presentations and interactive multimedia involving significant amount of computer animation for C-DAC's Supercomputers and Language Technology Products. He regularly writes and publishes thought provoking articles (about 35 articles so far) related to HCI research in India on www.hceye.org. Apart from these activities, he has interest and skills in Indian classical singing (learnt it for 4.5 years), music composition, poetry, cartooning / caricaturing and animation.

My Roots in HCI...

In this section, I propose to narrate my journey in C-DAC since the beginning, to present the underpinning of my endeavors in Human Computer Interaction (HCI). The roots of 'multimedia creations team' of C-DAC, Pune (now popularly known as National Multimedia Resource Centre) go back in 1993.

My first assignment was 'the foundation day of C-DAC' in 1993-94. I designed an animated sequence of 'electronic lamp lighting' using the Macintosh system for its inauguration. The music for this sequence was composed on PC, as we had installed one of the first sound cards from VideoLogic on it. We did not have the sound card for Macintosh.

Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar, the chief guest for the foundation day, was requested to click the mouse button to inaugurate the event. After clicking the mouse, it triggered the animation sequence, wherein a star from the sky dropped on the wick of lamp to light it. At this time, my colleague had to hide behind a wooden counter with his PC to manually trigger the music in synchronization with the animated sequence which was running on the Macintosh system.

This was the first time we faced cross-platform compatibility problem. The novelty of e-lamp appealed to everyone including Dr. Mashelkar, as later he borrowed the e-lamp to National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) for another event. I agreed to take the Macintosh and PC to NCL with a request to arrange a wooden counter for my colleague to hide behind! It was fun!

The e-lamp became so popular that Times of India published the news as 'High Tech C-DAC Inaugurates Foundation Day with Electronic Lamp'. This assignment earned me the legitimate space for my activities, as later I was entrusted with the responsibility to setup the 'Multimedia Creations Team' at C-DAC.

In 1994-1995, I was asked to design the corporate image of C-DAC. The objective was to justify the diversification of C-DAC into several technological spheres by visually representing these activities in a unified and integrated manner.

Although I never new about Human Computer Interaction (HCI) domain, my natural thinking prompted me to represent the 'Human' focus into the activities of C-DAC. I felt only human centric focus could justify all our efforts!

After looking at the corporate image, as shown above, Padmashree Dr. Vijay Bhatkar, founder Executive Director of C-DAC, titled it as 'Advanced Computing for Human Advancement'.

I was happy to find this image printed on the cover of Elitex 2005 brochure published by Ministry of ICT. This speaks for its relevance even after a decade has passed. And now HCI ideology, which epitomizes 'Human dimensions in computing', has taken over the technology domain. It is more relevant today than ever before!